Abstract
This paper presents a fully programmable Internet of Things visual sensing node that targets sub-mW power consumption in always-on monitoring scenarios. The system features a spatial-contrast ${128\times 64}$ binary pixel imager with focal-plane processing. The sensor, when working at its lowest power mode ( ${10 ~\mu }\text{W}$ at 10 frames/s), provides as output the number of changed pixels. Based on this information, a dedicated camera interface, implemented on a low-power field-programmable gate array, wakes up an ultralow-power parallel processing unit to extract context-aware visual information. We evaluate the smart sensor on three always-on visual triggering application scenarios. Triggering accuracy comparable to RGB image sensors is achieved at nominal lighting conditions, while consuming an average power between 193 and ${277 ~\mu }\text{W}$ , depending on context activity. The digital subsystem is extremely flexible, thanks to a fully programmable digital signal processing engine, but still achieves $19 {\times }$ lower power consumption compared to MCU-based cameras with significantly lower on-board computing capabilities.
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